The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-03-12
ALL rs VANITY.

~ 49, ~ stAic money visiting the
n0nles and relics of American public
'lten. and also tliose Of distinguished
tofeigners. than the writer.
Reading has been my pioneer to
travel, and after having had twenty
seven gears of it sometimes wonder
hsuccessfnl personsges are Aworth
following up. That all vHnity Is
ffe Inevitable lesson Of discQSering
them AZ they lived.
Indeed, 4 greatSman's house Is not
more consequential to his influence
than the she'll Of some mollnscous
afitskl which used Ii for a time and
then melted away.
Aount Vernon, for instance. wAs
shinQtnn's home and Is his grave,
h.s aardIy any of his real public I'm
WI 4 .9hef PASSED OF projected there.
He was eight years a surveyor on the
mountains, was eight years in the
army. and eight years in the Presi-
dency. All that he did at Mount
Vernon was to arrange his papers
and entertain curiosity seekers and
play at fancy farming. There he
died under circumstances of priva-
ton, for he could not get doctor for
a night and half a day after he was
taken ill.
Mr.. Jefferson's home at Monticello
has always been dismal ruin when
/ have visited it, his gravestone pick
ed to pieces by schoolboys and idiots;
and those things he prided himself
upon in housekeeping were not good,
such as sleeping, not on a bedstead,
but in a pastered alcove which was
damp and had no draught of air upon
it. Yet he began to make this home
long before he was man of political
consequence, although he was in con-
tinuous public life for nearly fifty
years.
He thought, above all things, that
Monticello was a success, and impor-
ted his window saShes for 1t from
England, and fused and correspon-
ded about it with everybody, until
ut last he had to solicit help to retain
it at all and in that day. as in this,
presents of money were sent to him
from New York, Philadelphia and
South Carolina, and he besOught the
legislature of Virginia, much against
its conscience. to let him base lot
terry upon its premises.
Montpelier. Mr.. Madison's house,
which he brought into extensive
form after he had been President,
was an unsolicited place when l saw
it ten years ago. with an alien inhab-
ting its twelve hundred acres. who
had only one domestic servant. and
he, too, worried me to find him a
purchaser, so that he could 60 of
somewhere and be lost in the midst
of large city.
From a survey of all the Presi.
dents, l am rather of the opinion
that the most successful of them were
the two Adamses and the recent
President Hayes ; for these men have
retained their houses in the family
and they gave to domestic life enough
attention to compensate them for the
inevitable disappointment of public
life.
There are no two such household
relics in the United States as the
plain, ugly, semi-farmhOuses where
the father and son of the Adams
family were born at old Quincy, neal
Boston.
The later house of President Ad'
ans the first, has been kept up by
descendants who have uniformly
prospered, either through intermar
riages or careful quest of business iI
the neighboring great city.
Mr.. Hayes. in spite of much trivia
satire. has survived all the ex-Presi
dents, and has secure solace in hi!
own family, which he has Away
thought more of than of public sta
tion. / went to see him while HI
was President. and found his agree
able but modest brick house standins
in 4 natural wood at the edge of th'
town of Fremont-a town so new
that the public man might almost a
well be in Germany as expect ther'
to be much troubled with social at
tentions. Many of the inhabitant
are Germans, and the railroad run
ming through the place gives eas,
access to Philadelphia or CLEVELAND
or Columbus, so that it is a real, ant
not false, retirement.
Mr.. Hayes was never saying
when President. like Jefferson ant
Washington, that he iUnged for hi
home, but he gets more real satisfaC
ton out of it than if he had receives
more applause; while his admins
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